@3:00pm

Customer: “Hey, are you open?”

Me: “Sorry sir, we open at 4:30.”

Customer: “Not even for a drink?”

Seriously, people conveniently forget their brains at home whenever they go out.

For those that don’t know, I am a manager at a nice restaurant in the Chicago burbs. It’s a place that you can have a romantic dinner at or have a few martinis at our bar. An average dinner for a customer (say he or she just gets a drink and an entree) runs about $15-$20 and that’s with plenty of food left over to take home (our portions are very generous). Think of it like a Wildfire, Morton’s, or Gibson’s type of place with better food and service but affordable prices.

Last night one of the servers came up to me and showed me one of our gift card holders with $25 handwritten on it. Inside there was no gift card. The customer at his table wanted to use that as his gift card. I told the server that we could not honor that as a gift card since there was no gift card in the holder. A minute later the server came back and told me that the customer wanted to speak with a manager.

I’m not a hardass manager. I take care of my customers. If I see that the customers are big spenders or repeats I buy them a drink or dessert. I develop somewhat of a relationship with them and they usually know me by name the next time they come in. I pulled up this customer’s check. $23.54. A burger, a wrap, and an iced tea. Lovely.

I went over to the table, always maintaining my composure and polite mannerisms. I knew this guy. He had come in here a couple times before, maybe twice in the last 6 months. I never forget faces. The man explained to me that he wanted to use the gift card holder as a $25 gift certificate. I calmly explained that I could not honor that because he needs to present the actual gift card, not the holder.

“Well this is what we received. There was no gift card in here. And the only reason we came here tonight was because of this,” the man said. Ahhhh, the first-timer story. Coupled with a meticulously thought out bill that would not exceed the amount he was expecting to be discounted. What a victim.

“I’m terribly sorry sir, but I cannot honor this because it is not a gift card. Unless you have the gift card that accompanied it, then I cannot accept it,” I reply.

“Well I never received a gift card, this is all I received! I want you to take this and that’s final!” he raised his voice.

“Again sir, I apologize but that is not something I can do. Perhaps you should contact the person who gave this to you. They might have forgotten to give you the gift card.”

“I want to talk to the owner. This is ridiculous. I come here quite often and spend a lot of money whenever I come here.” OK asshole. You’ve come twice in the last 6 months and you’ve spent enough this evening to scrape by without paying a single dime. Choke on a dick.

I call up the owner on the phone and his response is simple: “Tell him to fuck himself. No gift card, no discount.” No don’t take this the wrong way, he would never say this in front of customers. He’s a very nice guy, he just over-exaggerates things to me to prove a point. I go back to the table and tell the guy that the owner told me to take his name and number and he’d call him tomorrow (which is what in fact happens in a situation like this).

“No, I want to be satisfied NOW. I’m not paying this bill. I’m the customer, I’m right,” he demands. Customers are now looking from nearby tables. The booth next to his is stifling laughter. People aren’t dumb. They can spot a douchebag a mile away. Especially a penny pinching douchebag.

“Sir, there is nothing more I can do. I cannot overstep my bounds and disobey the owner. If you leave your contact information he will call you tomorrow and I’m sure you will be able to resolve this with him,” I say cooly, never losing my polite composure.

“Well I’ve already taken care of the server. You can take care of the bill. I’m being ripped off. You are taking advantage of me!” he shouts.

“Sir, I kindly ask that you lower your voice.”

“No, I want people to know what kind of a rip-off establishment this is. And I’m going to tell all my friends not to come here! And I’m not paying this bill either!” God I please hope you do! Especially if they’re cheap fucks like you!

“Sir, I’m afraid that if you leave without paying I will have to call the police,” I reply. Fuck you if you think you’re gonna win.

“Fine, call the police! Oh, and get me my money back from the server!”

“Sir, was the food all right?” I interrupt.

“Food was great,” he snapped.

“Was the service all right?” I asked.

“Service was excellent,” he admitted.

“Then sir I’m not sure why the server has to suffer if he did his job in a way that met your expectations?” I tried to save the server’s tip.

“Well if I suffer, everyone suffers!” he muttered. I went to the server and told him the guy wanted his tip back. The server smiled and handed me a single $1. Whoa there high roller…. I returned to the table with the dollar bill and placed it on the table. The guy yanked it and pulled out his wallet. As he opened it to put the dollar bill in a plastic card fell out. What do you know, it was one of our gift cards. The guy turned bright red as he quickly snatched it up and put it in his pocket. He silently took out a credit card and handed it to me. He quietly paid and left without saying a word.

Some people will do anything to get an extra free meal nowadays….

OK, I’m finally drawing the line here. Today I read the Producers Letter for Star Wars Galaxies and I almost threw up. Not cause it was so full of BS that it could be simply summed up in five sentences, but because they’re going to attempt to balance out Jedi and Commandos. Now this isn’t going to be centered around SWG, virtually all MMOs out there do this. They try to “balance” out all classes, so that they’re all equal. If Class A has an ability that is a ying, then Class B must have an ability that is a yang. This is total crap and it pollutes the games we play. Instead of making the games fun and diverse, it is making them cookie cutter and dull. It is a pain in the ass for both the developer and the player.

Here’s how it works. Say I’m making an MMO about global law enforcement. Two of my classes are police officers and 00-agents. In the real world, police officers are naturally underpowered compared to 00-agents, which are vastly overpowered. I want to make this MMO realistic, so I incorporate everything possible regarding each class. Police officers are generally better at crowd control, when working in groups, and operating by the book. 00-agents are good at covert operations, are lethal at 1v1, they also have a good chance of taking on more than one opponent at the same time, and are specialists at changing the rules of the playing field to fit their advantage.

So what happens? The game runs smoothly at first. Everyone is having a good time. Then PvP is discovered, first at the low level and then at the high. The players notice an inconsistency: Police officers keep getting demolished by 00-agents. There simply is no way to win unless you zerg/gank them. So the police officer community begins to riot and demand adjustments to be made to the game play system so it could be more fair. So the developers, not wanting to upset their customers, decide to reduce the power output of 00-agents and make them much more vulnerable. This way, police officers have a chance to 1v1 a 00-agent and actually win. But something goes wrong, it seems that the developers made 00-agents too underpowered. The 00-agent community is in an uproar, demanding that the nerf-bat be put away and that the power of police officers be reduced so that 00-agents have a chance of winning.

This pattern goes back and forth like a pendulum until finally the devs all put their heads together and completely rework the officer and agent combat system. They make a chart of every agent ability and every police officer ability. Their decision is to make each and every ability from one class equally counterable by an ability from the opposing class. The result is a success. Both classes now have an equal chance of winning in PvP. The riots fizzle and the community is happy.

This example can be seen in almost every MMO out there to some degree: Jedi vs Bounty Hunters in SWG, Scouts vs Warriors, Warlocks vs Shamen in WoW, and the list goes on. In the end, it not only takes away the uniqueness of each class, but it completely nullifies any realistic aspects of the game. Life isn’t about playing fair. By pampering the players with classes that are equal to one another we remove any sense of realism and uniqueness to the game. We SPOIL players this way. And in the end, it wastes more resources to end up making things equal than to make it more real by leaving things unequal. What’s the point of playing a 00-agent when a cop has the same chance of success at a far easier pace? People chose certain classes because they want to play those classes, they want to play them for what they are and what they represent. If I want to play a Jedi, I better be able to kick some major ass like Obi-Wan did in Episode III. Some asshole MEDIC should not be able to defeat me. I’m a Jedi for crying out loud! If I’m a Rogue that lurks in the shadows, and I stealth and backstab you, you better believe that you will be dead, if not significantly damaged by it.

Bring realism back to MMOs. Games are entertainment, they help us escape our issues in real life. But lets not dumb them down so much that we give false impressions of utopia to the player. Younger players are affected the most by this. With MMOs being a form of social interaction in their adolescence, they get a fake impression that the world is fair, that things are all balanced. This is a negative impression on society as a whole. Bring back diversity to MMOs. Bring back the fun. Make things realistic. Make the cops be cops and the agents be agents. Remember, life is not about following rules and fairness. It is about making your own rules and trying to be #1. Quit spoiling the player, let them in turn figure out how to spoil themselves!

Right after Halloween I began to notice something strange that occurred this year. Hints of the holiday season began to pop up ever so vaguely. By last week, it was blatantly obvious. Last Wednesday I woke up at 7am like I usually do. As I drove to the train station, I noticed some scattered homes with Christmas decorations already up. I figured that those homeowners had taken advantage of the unusually nice weather we were experiencing. I took the train to the Loop and went into Dunkin’ Donuts as usual to get my coffee. I was only half awake, but my senses immediately picked up the Christmas carols playing on the radio. Annoyed, I proceeded to campus and walked into DePaul Center. As I made my way through the Barnes & Noble to get to the elevators, I noticed that a section had been set up dedicated to children’s Christmas books. Trying to ignore this Christmas Early Warning System that society was implementing, I made my way to my Marketing class. I sat in my usual spot and lo and behold, the girl who sits next to me was drinking Starbuck’s. This wasn’t unusual, but her cup was. Her Starbuck’s cup was now red with white snowflakes printed around it. I could no longer hold it in.

“What the hell is that?” I asked as I pointed to her disposable cup of coffee.

“It’s a double soy latte…” she began.

“No, the cup. Is that Starbuck’s?” I interrupted.

“Yeah, I guess they’re using their Christmas cups now that the season is here,” she replied.

Excuse me, but I still haven’t finished all of the Halloween candy I robbed from the trick or treaters who came to my house. Hell, Thanksgiving isn’t even here yet, but all this holiday season bullshit is popping up everywhere? Maybe I just wasn’t as receptive to my surroundings in previous years, but this year this Christmas crap seems to be coming at us full force a bit too early. I did a bit of research and it turns out I’m still perfectly sane. Reports of an “early jump” to the holiday season this year were already popping up even before last week. There was an article in the Chicago Sun-Times about WLIT (93.9) switching from adult contemporary to Christmas carols the first week of November, the earliest it’s done so ever.

I’m not against Christmas or the holiday cheer. In fact, one of my most favorite moments is when I am on the Magnificent Mile in the evening, it is dark out, and it is snowing light and puffy flurries. Cheerful faces are everywhere, there are Santa’s here and there, Christmas decorations, the Big Tree, carolers, and horse-and-carriages all enjoying the holiday season. However, this is supposed to happen during the holiday season, not now. There should be a law stating that the holiday season doesn’t start until the day after Thanksgiving. Anyone who puts up Christmas decorations, promotes holiday merchandise, plays or sings Christmas carols, or asks me for Christmas donations should be fined and imprisoned.

As far as I’m concerned, we’re still in the “Tis the Season To Be An Asshole” period. We just celebrated a holiday where we dress up our children as characters of death or evil, exploit candy from our neighbors, and try to invoke fright upon others (whether it be with haunted houses or teenage mischief). Halloween is one of the biggest burglary nights of the year. There’s nothing to be happy about during this time. We’re still recovering from it. This is the final stretch before the holiday season. It’s crunch time for everyone. Work is busy as hell, school is more of a pain in the ass than it will ever be during the rest of the year, and everyone is running on overdrive. We just got out of an election where the main goal of it was to prove your opponent was a bigger dick than you and to make the public hate their candidates and each other even more.

Thanksgiving is the official start of the holiday season. This is when we put those feelings of hate, mischief, stress, and malice away and embrace a more cheerful, thankful, and loving mood. Yes, we unfortunately become hippies. But that’s how it goes, and that’s how it should be. That is when Christmas carols should be played on the radio. That is when Christmas decorations should be put on houses. That is when Christmas books should be put on display in bookstores. We shouldn’t have to see anything holiday related before Thanksgiving, just cause some asshole businessperson thinks he or she can boost company profits by promoting the holiday season earlier, or feeding the public some “Christmas in July” bullshit. Nobody buys into this shit cause everyone is still too pissed off at each other. And that’s precisely why I’m writing this. Keep the holiday season promotions within the holiday season. Otherwise, fuck off.